Lightning arresters are central to power systems. Typical power delivery and transmission systems involve towers or power poles holding long expanses of power-carrying cables high above the surface of the earth and across large tract of land. The power delivery systems of the public utilities create a grid across the country connecting cities, power plants, substations, generators, dams, and so forth.
Surge arresters or lightning arresters are responsible for drawing the current from lightning into conductors that will conduct the energy to ground. Accordingly, they may involve wires and air terminals above the level of the power carrier cables. Meanwhile, addition surge protection may be provided to assure that no breakdown occurs in the insulators that insulate the main power carrier lines from their towers or poles that suspend them above the earth.
Buildings have a similar problem. They stand above the earth and tend to draw lightning. Thus, lightning rods date from very early days in America. Basic lightning rod systems of yesteryear involved an air terminal or “point” that was typically fastened to extend above the highest point of a building. This air terminal or point was connected to a cable that conducted electricity from the point down to ground, literally the surface of the earth.
With modern architecture and modern buildings, the problem has become more complex in that multiple air terminals or points may be attached to a building, and a building may not have a single highest location. Often, with false fronts, parapets, and other architectural features, a rather large expanse of a building architecture may be located at the “highest” location.
Lightning protection for buildings has progressed according to certain standards. Typically, cables of a suitable size will be connected, anchored at approximately every three feet along their length, and run from point to point, where a “point” indicates an air terminal or a lightning “point” as that term is used in the art. Typically, all the points on a building will be connected to one another and to a grounding cable that carries any electrical power received from the points down to the ground.
Nevertheless, interfacing hardware with a building presents a design question. For example, buildings may be constructed of wood, masonry, concrete, steel, glass, combinations and so forth. The range of materials and their material properties vary widely. Similarly, lightning protection is not the only consideration in designing a building.
Meanwhile, lightning protection may often be provided retroactively. Buildings may already exist, and lightning protection may not have been designed into them. By the same token, even when lightning protection is contemplated during the architectural phase of a building, the attachment scheme of a lightning protection system is a consideration that must be dealt with in view of the other architectural features of the building.
At present, electrical fasteners are connected by any suitable means, which usually involves fastening to a structural portion of the building. Thus, protective covers, plates, caps, sheeting, flashing, or other mechanisms for protecting the upper reaches of a building from weather may be damaged, penetrated, breached, or otherwise compromised by the fasteners of a lightning protection system. What is needed is a less invasive lightning protection system.
Specific improvements that may be useful include a universal mounting system for lightning or arrester points. The point or rod that literally draws a lightning strike to a protection system, rather than to the protected structure, may need to be oriented on a horizontal surface, a vertical surface, or some other location. Accordingly, it would be an advance in the art to provide a universal mounting system that will mount to a suitable bracket or building mounting system, and yet be capable of being oriented to receive a lightning arrester point in a vertical orientation. Meanwhile, receiving a cable for carrying current from the point and its corresponding mounting hardware should also be accommodated such that orienting the mount to receive the point leaves available a suitable securement location and hardware for receiving and securing the conducting cable.
It has Applicants' experience that conventional mounting hardware is sometimes destroyed by a lightning strike because the connections are insufficiently robust, the contact area is insufficiently extensive, and the cross sectional area of mounting hardware is too small for proper current conduction of the current from a lightning strike. More cross sectional area, greater contact area, and greater mass would be beneficial in the entire contact path from a point to the conducting cable of a lightning protection system.